Singer Lauryn Hill released from Conn. prison

DANBURY, Conn. – Grammy-winning singer Lauryn Hill was released from federal prison today and will spend three months under home confinement under terms of her guilty plea to failing to pay taxes.

Hill’s attorney, Nathan Hochman, said the former Fugees singer left the prison in Danbury, Conn., today. She was sentenced in July to serve three months in prison.

“Ms. Hill was released today from federal prison after serving her sentence,” Hochman said in an email. “She was released several days early based on a number of factors the Bureau of Prisons takes into consideration, including good behavior. She will now start today a one-year period of probation with three months of home confinement during that year.”

Hill, who started singing with the Fugees as a teenager in the 1990s before releasing her multiplatinum 1998 album “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” pleaded guilty last year in New Jersey to failing to pay taxes on more than $1.8 million earned from 2005 to 2007. Her sentence also took into account unpaid state and federal taxes in 2008 and 2009 that brought the total earnings to about $2.3 million.

The South Orange, N.J., resident has said in online postings and at her sentencing that she stopped paying taxes after she dropped out of the music business to protect herself and her children, who now number six. At her June sentencing in federal court in Newark, she compared her experience in the music business to the slavery her ancestors endured.

Hochman says he hasn’t had a chance to speak to his client since her release.